Morecambe Bay to lead the way into brave new world of healthcare

Better Care Together NHS review open day in Morecambe. Pictured is Andrew Bennett, chief officer for Lancashire North CCG.

Nick Lakin

Published:16:43Tuesday 10 March 2015

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The programme has been chosen from a total of 269 bids from across the country

For patients, this will lead to a significant improvement in their experience of health services

This could mean fewer trips to hospitals as cancer and dementia specialists and GPs work in new teams; a single point of access for family doctors, community nurses, social and mental health services; and access to tests, dialysis or chemotherapy much closer to home

Morecambe Bay’s Better Care Together health strategy has been picked to become one of 29 “vanguards” of future health services across the country.

The leaders of the NHS in England have today, March 10, announced that Better Care Together has been chosen to take a national lead on transforming care for patients.

The programme has been chosen from a total of 269 bids from across the country who put forward their ideas for how they want to redesign care in their areas.

Drawing on a new £200m transformation fund and tailored national support, from April the vanguards will develop local health and care services to keep people well, and bring home care, mental health and community nursing, GP services and hospitals together for the first time since 1948.

For patients, this will lead to a significant improvement in their experience of health services.

Andrew Bennett, Chief Officer for Lancashire North CCG said: “This gives the Better Care Together programme the ideal opportunity to put into place a number of the exciting proposals we have outlined in our strategy and enables Morecambe Bay to start to put into practice our vision for a health system that breaks down organisational barriers.”

Better Care Together NHS review open day in Morecambe. Pictured is Dr Alex Gaw.

It is estimated more than five million patients will benefit across the country from this first wave, locally in Morecambe Bay this means approximately 365,000 people.

This could mean fewer trips to hospitals as cancer and dementia specialists and GPs work in new teams; a single point of access for family doctors, community nurses, social and mental health services; and access to tests, dialysis or chemotherapy much closer to home.

Better Care Together said that people should have greater access to primary care services, at times to suit them, as the programme develop more services and capacity in a setting closer to home.

Simon Stevens, the Chief Executive of NHS England, said: “The NHS now has its own long term plan, backed by just about everybody, and today we’re firing the starting gun. Instead of the usual top-down administrative tinkering, we’re backing radical care redesign by frontline nurses, doctors and other staff - in partnership with their patients and local communities. From Wakefield to Whitstable, and Yeovil to Harrogate, we’re going to see distinctive solutions to shared challenges, which the whole of the NHS will be able to learn from.”

Aaron Cummins, Deputy Chief Executive of University of Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This is fantastic news for both patients and staff. Being chosen as a Vanguard means we can take forward the improvements planned in Better Care Together further and faster with the support that this secures. It’s a really important step forward in realising the ambitious plans we and our health and social care partners have for modern, efficient and accessible health services across the Morecambe Bay area.”

The vanguards will take the national lead on the development of game-changing care models:

multispecialty community providers (MCPs) – moving specialist care out of hospitals into the community;

models of enhanced health in care homes – offering older people better, joined up health, care and rehabilitation services.

From April 2015, the national NHS will work with local vanguard sites to develop dedicated support packages to enable and accelerate change, and an intensive evaluation programme will seek evidence on what works so that this can be spread to other parts of the country.

Support will be tailored to the needs of each area, but could be a combination of peer learning and expertise in areas such as patient empowerment and community engagement, leadership, clinical workforce redesign, using digital technology to redesign care, devising new legal forms and new contractual models; and joined up procurement.

All areas will benefit from a wider support and learning package which will be rolled out later this year, based on the learning from the vanguard sites. Additionally, as a result of the many examples of excellent models up and down the country, a wider programme of support is being put in place for some of the health and social care systems that applied to be part of the programme. This is being supported by the Kings Fund.

The NHS Five Year Forward View, published in October 2014 by NHS England, Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority, the Care Quality Commission, Public Health England and Health Education England, set out the health, quality of care, and funding gaps that will open up if the NHS does not change.